


it's my fate (don't smile on me, light on me)

by asahijpeg



Series: snktober month 2020 [5]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Gen, He also hates himself, Insomnia, Intrusive Thoughts, Levi is an insomniac, Self-Hatred, day five: blade, self blame, snktober, snktober 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-05
Updated: 2020-10-05
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:48:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,312
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26852455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asahijpeg/pseuds/asahijpeg
Summary: "i deserve this."in which levi ackerman is a raging insomniac and often thinks about the choices he's made.
Series: snktober month 2020 [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1945990
Kudos: 10
Collections: SNKTOBER Month 2020





	it's my fate (don't smile on me, light on me)

when levi manages to get to sleep, it’s long past normal functioning hours. where his peers drift off to bed while the moon is closer to the horizon, the short captain stays up long after the silver light has reached its nightly peak. everything from intrusive thoughts to bouts of nerves keep him up past when he’d like to be sleeping safely in darkness’s embrace.

when he manages to get to sleep, it’s only hours at a time, dozing long after the moon has begun its journey and waking long before the sun takes its place and he can’t force himself back into that pseudo comfort. he’s not sure if being up late or finally getting to sleep is worse; both scenarios lead right back to him reliving the worst moments of his life, so what’s the difference between his waking nightmare and the ones he encounters at night, especially when they all bleed together?

he can’t tell for certain how much time has passed since he fell asleep, but when he awakes tonight, the moon is nowhere near the other side of its path, meaning it can’t have been a long slumber. he lays on his back, steely eyes trained on some spot above him, false shadows created by his hyperactive mind dancing across the ceiling with ease. he wishes desperately that he could will himself back to sleep, force himself back into the darkness that is quickly becoming unfamiliar, but he knows that it would be in vain, so instead, he keeps his gaze straight ahead, breath even as he lays there under the covers.

no concept of time present in his mind, nothing else to focus on, levi’s train of thought takes hold and runs rampant, leaving him reeling as it brings him back to relive everything that haunts him. no matter how many times he says he doesn’t plan on regretting the choices he’s made,  _ doesn’t _ regret them, they still haunt him like ghosts, poltergeists that keep him up late at night and guide his steps in the daylight.

without any rhyme or reason, suddenly he’s being thrown back to that turning point decision on a roof in shiganshina, one man’s life over another. it’s almost like he can see erwin’s weak body laying in front of him, his cool blue eyes hazy, focused on something invisible to everyone else; it’s almost like he can hear erwin’s voice, ragged with death, as he asks some question from a distant past, his lifelong dream to answer it.  _ how do you know for sure there’s nobody on the other side of the walls? _

_ give up on your dream _ , he remembers saying.  _ and die. _

_ i hadn’t meant it entirely literally, you idiot, _ he thinks, sighing and squeezing his eyes shut as he rolls onto his left side. and he really hadn’t, at least he didn’t  _ think _ he did; in the moment, he’d said it more as a motivator to get erwin to charge into battle, to fill the man with some twisted kind of sense of determination, but now, looking back, he realizes that it was more of an encouragement, a way of reminding erwin of their promise to lay down their lives for the survey corps, that if he rushed head first into danger it was what they were meant to do. 

in retrospect, he couldn’t have even been  _ upset _ that erwin had gotten fatally wounded on the battlefield; they’d put themselves in harm’s way time and time again, their bad luck was bound to catch up to them eventually. and now, knowing erwin’s lifelong dream, the way he wavered violently between being that innocent child with a dream and a world-weary adult with responsibilities anybody else would buckle under the weight of, levi couldn’t help but  _ know _ that he’d made the right choice.

_ give up on your dream and die _ meant  _ let go of your selfish childhood desires and start prioritizing your responsibilities as our commander _ . 

and erwin had, he’d paid the ultimate price for it. he’d heard levi and taken him seriously, finally decided to dedicate himself to those full fledged adult responsibilities, even if it meant losing himself to death.

still, levi’s mind can’t help but remind him of everything he’s lost over the years, all the people who’d meant the absolute world to him, all the people who had given him a reason to fight, to  _ succeed. _ his mother, furlan, isabel, his previous squad, kenny, now erwin… he’d finally lost the last person who had always driven him towards victory, had always believed in him and in his strength and who he  _ could _ be.

cold eyes boring deep into the pitch blackness of his room, levi’s mind races, moving so quickly that he can’t slow it down. his intrusive thoughts doing nothing but make him feel worse and worse until he feels like he can’t breathe, drowning underneath the crushing weight of them all. not even sleep could let him escape from them, the words so ingrained in his head that they appear even to his dream self.

when his consciousness stops running wild, it’s a single thought it has zeroed in on and he can’t help but agree with it.

_ i deserve this. _

recalling all of the bad things that’s befallen him in his short life, he realizes that pattern that he’s always subconsciously followed; nothing but loss and death follow him like lost puppies, nipping at his heels without a reprieve from them. is it the criminal undertakings of his past when he lived in the underground? the dedication of his life to a cause that he was all but forced into, the destruction he’s caused in the name of humanity? he can’t pinpoint where he might have started this personal little curse of his and he doesn’t think he wants to. 

all he can think is that deep down, maybe he deserves to suffer through every single death that has ever come his way, like some kind of repayment for the the deaths of his friends, the only people who have ever believed in him. he’s been a bad person, done awful and terrible things without even sparing a second thought and because of that, he logicizes, the universe is striking back at him, getting revenge by taking away the only people keeping him on the good side of life. 

it’s a wonder, he thinks, that he’s not completely lost his mind yet. still, he balances on a very fine line, a sharply thin blade, and tipping either way could launch him into an irreversible despair. it amazes him that he’s managed to keep himself steady on this tightrope of his, completely and utterly stable though still facing the threat of falling into the chasm of absolute anguish-

tired of thinking, levi tosses over to his right side and focuses his gaze on the moon just beyond the window pane. he can’t completely get rid of these thoughts of his, can’t erase them, but acknowledging them and trying to focus on anything else to allow them to pass without interacting with them helps. so, his cold eyes trained on the falling silver disc suspended in a navy blue sky, he does his best to ignore them. 

in his mind, he pictures himself balancing on that sharp little blade, his feet completely steady. on the other end of it stands those he’s lost, the people who believed in him when he’s been unable to, sending him smiles and encouraging him to keep going as long as he can, that they’ll be waiting when the time’s right.

unconsciously, as his eyes slip closed for a second time, he feels a chill pass over his left shoulder, a barely there pressure that provides a warm comfort despite the cold, like some ghost of his past telling him that everything’s going to be okay.

he falls asleep.

**Author's Note:**

> title from "the truth untold (feat. steve aoki)" by bts, love yourself: tear (2018)
> 
> not a huge fan of this one either. i think when i was initially planning fics for snktober, this was going to deal with levi handling suicidal thoughts (hence the blade prompt), but i figured i would take it for a more figurative, literary spin instead. the idea that he's kind of teetering on this line that separates him from falling into complete and utter despair and not doing so because he's such a stubborn person makes so much sense to me that i couldn't NOT go with that take on the prompt.


End file.
